Here I bring you my deep insights in the Perth Property Market, including the latest on the Sale and Rental market plus property investment tips, tools and strategies… Check out the video or see the transcription with graphs below…. Let me know if you liked it or any feedback on what you would like to see in my next update 🙂

Transcription and graphs

G’day! It’s Jarrad Mahon here from Investors Edge Real Estate, bringing you my March Perth Property Market Update. Thanks for joining me! Let me take you through the Sale Market, the Rental Market and then some things to consider in the investing space.

So, this month, I’ve called our property market update a Steady Start and I’m going to take you through the reasons why we’ve had a pretty steady start of the year and so I’ll launch straight into the Sale Market.

Perth Sale Market

Number of properties for sale

Firstly the number of properties for sale, surprisingly enough has remained a lot lower in January, February and March since the peak of supply we were at in December and November last year. Things have dropped from 16,300 and we’re now remaining a bit lower at 15,100 properties for sale.

Now, that’s a good sign because when a lot of properties came off for the holiday break, only those that are really serious about selling have seem to come back on. And those extra properties that were waiting to come on over that time have continued to be taken up in the market and we’re starting to see a bit of a downward trend from our peak in November. So that’s good news for the market.

Number of sales each week

However, when we look at the number of properties being sold each week, that trend has continued downwards and we had a very low week last week. That was actually the lowest on record since I’ve been recording things over nearly three years now.

So that is little bit worrying that we may see the number of properties for sale starting to increase back up again. So I will have to keep an eye on that over the coming months. We’re really continuing that downward trend but I think sellers are a bit more realistic now about the prices that they can achieve.

Six months ago, a lot of sellers were coming on over the top of the market and really asking more than what the market is prepared to pay. And part of the reason that we’re not seeing as many come on is that people are being more realistic and if they can’t get the price they want they just re-assess their plans and are digging down for the next couple of years. And so that’s why, I’d love to see our number sold pick back up again and I’ll be keeping an eye on that because that stat in itself is a bit concerning.

Days On Market

We’re seeing a reversal in the trend from its maximum 71 days earlier in the June quarter of last year. And the numbers came in for the December quarter and we were at 59 days as our average selling time.

So, that’s getting back down to a lot more reasonable time, two months to sell a property. And you can see how that compares with a 49 days when we were at the lowest in December, September 2013.

So we’re not doing too badly and part of that is because of what I was just mentioning that owners are being a lot more realistic with the pricing of their properties. They’re investing in their marketing now and we’re able to get a result still within a reasonable period of time.

So, it is important if you are going to go to the market, you should be selling in the first month if you get those things right (price and marketing).

Median House Price

I started bringing the stats on this to you in January, my last property market update and you can see that things in the December quarter did bounce back a little bit to the $535k from $530k. And that was the first positive sign that was seen but we have to see if that trend continues when we finish this quarter, the March quarter.

Unit Median Price

Also did the same, had a little bounce up to 435k and good to see the median for units is holding up well as well.

The Property Clock

This is really important for us to go through, every second month with you. You can see there’s no major change with Perth.

We’re still listed as being in a “Declining” market. Some of the other capital cities around Australia have changed in state, with Melbourne moving around to approaching its peak of the market and Canberra moving into a “Rising” market.

But Perth, we’ll be keeping an eye on when we start to approach the bottom of the market. And as I’ve said in the past, often, the time to buy is now when we are in “Declining” and “Approaching Bottom” because it can move very quickly through the bottom of the market. When we’re building or developing or doing anything that adds value and takes time when need to keep this in mind. We don’t want to wait to buy all those bargains until the markets starts coming up.

Perth Rental Market

Number for Rent

So, the Rental Market, let’s go into that.The number of properties for rent has sat pretty stable in January, February, March at 9,800. We had our peak in January at the start of the year, that was expected because we didn’t lease very little in December. So, it’s good to see that has dipped down since then and I can speak for the team here when I say that we’re starting to really lease out properties much quicker, we’re back on top of things.

January and February are actually, for most real estate agencies across Perth, the peak leasing times when people change properties in the year. So, there’s a lot of stress on the team to find quality tenants quickly.

Now that we’re through that period, we’ll see leasing times decrease and hopefully the number of properties will also start to trend back down. I’ll keep an eye on that, hopefully we have reached the peak.

Rental Vacancy Rate

Going on to our next slide, the Rental Vacancy Rate, it was a little bit worrying to see that go from 5.6% up to 6% in January, February and March. That is the highest in the three year period, nearly triple the number of properties vacant compared to what we had back in January 2013.

It just goes to show that in January, February, March, people are still not being as realistic about prices, as they are in the sales market. We really need to price realistically and market your properties well and you’ll have less vacancy, attract tenants quicker and we’d start to see this vacancy rate come down.

So, I’m really curious on the vacancy side to see if this stabilizes and starts to come back. It’d be a worrying sign if it continues to increase.

Median Rent

The median rent, that’s been pretty stable since the start of the year at $400 per week and hopefully that if the vacancy rate stabilizes we’ll also see the rent stabilize.

Investing

So, a couple of things in the investing space, not sure if you’ve seen them but I wanted to recap them for you and just make sure I’m providing you with as much values possible every month.

My Top 3 Suburbs to invest in 2016

I released last week my “Top 3 suburbs to invest in 2016” and I looked into all the land estates across Perth. I looked into the established properties between $400-$600k and the established properties between $601-$800k. I grouped all my research and data and information together and I came up with my top 3 for you.

Make sure you check out that blog post and video. You can go to our site or if you get my property investor update it’ll also be in this update for you to click on. Click Here

Check that out, I’ve had a lot of great feedback on it and I’m going to go into providing a top 3 on each of these categories for you over the coming month.

Perth Property Development Toolkit

With the next item, I’ve got my Perth property developments toolkit that a lot of you guys have downloaded. If you haven’t grabbed it yet, make sure you get a copy. Click Here

I’ve got lots of awesome feasibility spreadsheets, checklist and info. If you’re considering doing a property development in Perth, this is a real must have to avoid the costly mistakes that I’ve made and have the best chance of succeeding with your development.

There’s the link and interesting point to know on that front is we are again doing Buyers Agency, helping investors buy, duplex and triplex development sites. And we’re really getting some good deals for our clients at the moment, it’s a buyers’ market out there, the best time to buy. So if you do want us to help you find a site, get it touch and one of my team can help you in that space. Click Here for more.

How We Can Help

Strategy Sessions

Next slide, How We Can Help, we’ve also got strategy sessions that we’re going back to doing. We can now help people with both new investment sales and development sites. We can really help you take a deeper look into your situation, where you’re at, what your goals are and set a strategy that’s going to best suit your situation moving forward. So, if you do want a quick discovery call just see whether we can help. Click Here

Building New

As for our Building New House & Land, we can help you all over Perth with that. And a lot of people are saying to me, Jarrad why wouldn’t I just go direct to the builder? We’ll we’ve done all the research for you finding the best land estates to invest in. And we’ve gone and built the relationships with the builder so that we’ve got a bit of a buying power with them and we’re able to get you deals that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to get if you’d walked in up to straight and seen them.

So, we can definitely help you save time through the whole process, save money and save a lot of energy in building new investment properties. So check out that link and get in touch with us if you want to chat about your options. Click Here for more.

Thank You!

So, thank you for joining me. If you’re not already a member of my property investor update, you can join below and I hope to see you in the coming month with my latest on the market and all the tools to help you make money in this market. Thank you!